Strange Attractors
Poems of Love and Mathematics

Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics by Sarah Glaz (Editor), JoAnne Growney (Editor)
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Summary

Strange Attractors is a collection of approximately 150 poems with strong links to mathematics in content, form, or imagery. The common theme is love, and the editors draw from its various manifestations—romantic love, spiritual love, humorous love, love between parents and children, mathematicians in love, love of mathematics. The poets include literary masters as well as celebrated mathematicians and scientists.

“What, after all, is mathematics but the poetry of the mind, and what is poetry but the mathematics of the heart?” So wrote the American mathematician and educator David Eugene Smith. In a similar vein, the German mathematician Karl Weierstrass declared, “A mathematician who is not at the same time something of a poet will never be a full mathematician.” Most mathematicians will know what they meant. But what do professional poets think of mathematics?
In this delightful collection, the editors present the view of the same terrain - the connections between mathematics and poetry—from the other side of the equation: the poets. Now is your chance to see if the equation balances.

—Keith Devlin, mathematician, Stanford University, author of The Math Gene, The Math Instinct, and The Language of Mathematics.

Details

ISBN: 978-1-56881-341-7
Year: 2008
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 250

Reviews

Charles Ashbacher, Journal of Recreational Mathematics

April 2010

“As the song states, ”Love is a many-splendored thing.“ In this book mathematics is splendored in many ways that demonstrate the breadth and depth of interest and joy that it presents to those who love it. ”
—Charles Ashbacher

The Miss Rumphius Effect, JacketFlap.com (External Link)

April 2010

“I recently acquired the book Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics. I’m crazy about the poems in it.”

Wendy Galgan, Editor, Assisi Online Journal (PDF)

April 2010

“What a delighful collection! … The reader … does not need to know who Mandelbrot was, or how Venn diagrams work, or even the value of pi. She just has to understand that there is, at heart, a strong connection between math and poetry, and allow herself the pleasure of discovering how the two come together in these works.”

The College Math Journal (PDF)

December 2009

“The editors did do a great job on the extras. I appreciate how they contextualized the book, offering a list of related books on mathematical poetry. And I frequently found myself consulting the author bios and publication information. If you are a mathematician who likes poetry, you are going to have a good time with this book. There’s some spectacular poetry here, and some actual math. It’s worth the dig.”

Poet's Quarterly (External Link)

October 2009

“The strength of this anthology is that it looks at what both poets and mathematicians build with each other’s tools. Sarah Glaz and JoAnne Growney, have put together an anthology that readers with interests in either camp will enjoy and want to share.”

Intelligencer (PDF)

October 2009

“Among the delights of this book, in addition to the poetry, are a substantive introduction, bibliographical resources, information about the poet-contributors, and about the mathematicians who are named in poems. … Mathematicians and poetry lovers (with at least some feeling for math) will enjoy the many treasures in this anthology.”

MAA Reviews (External Link)

August 2009

“How do I love this book? Let me count the ways…

The intersection of mathematics and the arts is nonempty and this volume masterfully describes the contents of that intersection. … The authors have included notes about the contributors and information about the mathematicians who are mentioned. This latter feature makes the book even more appealing to a wider audience. … This wonderful volume could be used in a number of ways — supplemental reading in a history of mathematics course, reading in a poetry or literature course. Or just read it for fun.”

Books SA (External Link)

August 2009

Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee reviews Strange Attractors by Sarah Glaz and JoAnne Growney. See link above for full article.

Notices of the American Mathematical Society (PDF)

August 2009

“The highest type of intelligence, says Aristotle, manifests itself in an ability to see connections where no one has seen them before, that is, to think analogically. The spark of true poetry—according to one influential school of poets—flashes when ideas are juxtaposed that no one has yet thought of bringing together. Scientific discoveries often start with a hunch that there is some connection between apparently unrelated phenomena. So there are a priori grounds for thinking of poetry and mathematics together, as two rarefied forms of symbolic activity based on the power of the human mind to detect hidden analogies.”

Journal of Mathematics and the Arts

June 2009

“[These poems] articulate clearly - and poetically - thoughts and emotions informed by arithmetic. The attentive reader also learns some math. I had never really understood the concept of the asymptote until reading Elizabeth Anne Socolow’s ’Asymptote’ … That is to say, I might have understood the concept intellectually, but not with any feeling. Now, I get it, not just in my head, but also in my gut. And I know from my colleagues in the math department who speak with such passion about their work, that it cannot be only mental. … The editors of this collection have gathered an astonishing plethora of poems - from Dante through Shakespeare to Carl Sandburg and Shel Silverstein - that draw upon the metaphorical richnesses of math to make their poems sing. … Poetry and math, we discover, are not antithetical, as we might have supposed, rather there is a great deal of commerce between them. This collection is satisfying, provocative and robust.”
—Fredrerick Smock

CMS Notes (PDF)

May 2009

“Within literature poetry might be the part nearest to mathematics. The imposed structure of rhyme scheme and meter is an error correcting code … Similarly, proving theorems and composing poems seem to be abilities with about the same degree of rarity… . There are poems about all sorts of mathematical ideas - infinite series, fractals, calculus (”give me an epsilon and I will treat it well“), computability (”when a P-man loves an NP-woman“) and Alexander’s horned sphere. No matter what your field, there is a poem here about some topic dear to your heart.”

MAA Online (External Link)

April 2009

Two Poets Unveil the Poetic Beauty of Mathematics: “Explorations of connections between mathematics and poetry recently brought two poets to the MAA’s Carriage House Conference Center for an evening of readings… . Many selections came from the anthology Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics … .”

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UConn Advance (External Link)

April 2009

Mathematics and love coupled in professor’s book of poetry: “Mathematics is much like art, Glaz says: `I love to teach and I love doing research in mathematics. I think that proving a theorem and writing a poem come from the same place.’”

Library Bookwatch (External Link)

March 2009

“Love and arithmetic. Well over one hundred poems, both past, classic, and contemporary, discuss these two subjects and how they have more in common than one would think. Strange Attractors is a fresh and original book of poetry, highly recommended.”

EMS Newsletter (PDF)

March 2009

“This international collection … can be recommended to every reader who loves poetry and mathematics and who wants to explore the way that mathematical ideas inhabit poetry.”

plus magazine (External Link)

February 2009

“The combination of maths and love poetry might seem an odd mix. Despite loving maths myself, I was a little skeptical when I picked up this book … . I had no idea there would be so many poems suitable for such a collection, or that it would span so many centuries and include so many diverse contributors… . not only can [this book] show people who are looking for poems to express love, the beauty of the language of maths, but it also might help explain some of the deep emotions mathematicians feel for their subject. ”

Zentralblatt MATH (PDF)

February 2009

“It is a marvelous, lovely book.”

The London Mathematical Society (External Link)

February 2009

“It would seem a tall order to be asked to compile a substantial collection of ’poems of love and mathematics.’ However this challenge has been successfully taken up by Sarah Glaz and JoAnne Growney”

Journal of Object Technology (External Link)

January 2009

My Best Books of the Year 2008

“The last book that I mention contains very little material on computer science. It is Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics edited by Sarah Glaz and JoAnne Growney. Although many people will argue to the contrary, an elegant program or the documentation of a program is a work of literary merit… . This book is a collection of poetry by everyone from the masters to people aspiring to be one. It is good for the soul.”

December 2008

“Poetry may begin, as Yeats said, in the ’foul rag and bone shop of the heart,’ but it is completed with the music of the spheres. What a wonderful collection Strange Attractors is, offering readers—the ones who know mathematics is a form of poetry and the ones who don’t—a place to find, as Emily Dickinson says, what ’eludes the finding out.’”

—Robert Hass, author of Time and Materials

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